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Chad Mills
Unnamed grandparent |job = Former firefighter |path = Serial Killer "House Cleaner" Abductor Poisoner |signature = Two distinct signatures: *Post-mortem burning *Leaving victims' bodies at areas frequented by the homeless |mo = Stabbing Drowning in bleach |victims = 4 killed 2 attempted |status = Deceased |actor = Shane Johnson |appearance = "The Fallen" }} Chad Mills was a "house cleaner"-type serial killer, and later abductor and poisoner who appeared in the Season Eight episode "The Fallen". Background Nothing is known about Mills' early life other than he was born on January 10, 1977, had both an unnamed parent and unnamed grandparent (their statuses unknown), and at some point he became a third-generation Santa Monica firefighter. He also suffered from severe Mysophobia. He became well-known for his rescue of a total of six homeless people from an electrical fire at a warehouse; nine others were killed by the fire. However, two of the people he saved were infected with a drug-resistant strain of Tuberculosis, and he himself became infected through the unprotected contact. As a result, he was discharged from the fire department two months prior to the episode because of his illness. This worsened his Mysophobia and also caused him to develop Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. He blamed the homeless people for preventing him from becoming "someone important" and viewed them as being a virus to the city. Eventually snapping, Mills started killing, claiming the lives of a homeless man on November 5, 2012, and another four days later. After killing them, he burned their bodies and dumped the remains at the local pier as a warning to the homeless community. The Fallen After claiming his third victim, Lindsay Leeman, Mills murdered a homeless man named Jeremy the next day, this time by drowning him in bleach as a means of cleansing. At the same time, the BAU, called in by local police to investigate Mills's killings, receive help from Rossi's former sergeant from the Vietnam War, Harrison Scott, who is now a homeless man familiar with other vagrants living in the city. The following night, Mills approaches a homeless woman named Sarah Mapes and asks if she needs any help. She declines, just as Mills claims that he is trying to help her with "her problem" and then bitterly stating that she has a disease. He then holds her at knifepoint, but Scott, who is coincidentally nearby, confronts him. Mills cuts Scott's neck with the knife, but before he can continue, Sarah holds his arm down, allowing Scott, whose injury is superficial, to assault Mills. After a short fight, Mills is able to subdue Scott and make his escape with Sarah, nearly running Scott over with his car in the process. Surviving the attack, Scott relays what he saw to Rossi, including what he managed to catch from Mills' license plate, and this enables the BAU to narrow down and find Mills' residence. At his home, Mills thoroughly cleans and tends to his wounds sustained from his fight with Scott. He then approaches a restrained Sarah, douses her with bleach and pours it down her throat. But, he overhears the BAU entering his property and flees. As the team manages to rescue Sarah, he is able to escape and carjack a vehicle. Being familiar with the homeless population, Mills is able to easily find Scott and abducts him from an alleyway, angrily stating, "You've ruined everything." Taking him to the same warehouse where he rescued the six vagrants, Mills aggressively douses Scott, then the floor with gasoline. When Scott taunts him, he slashes him in the chest with a knife but begins to cough. Scott taunts him again, prompting Mills to activate a lighter, snarling that he was going to matter. Then, Rossi, JJ, and Morgan burst in, and attempt to convince him to put away the lighter. Mills refuses, and Scott orders Rossi to back down. He obliges and leaves, followed by JJ and Morgan, but the three sneak back into the warehouse as Scott distracts Mills. JJ and Morgan hold him at gunpoint while Rossi unties Scott. The four try to appeal to Mills, but they are unsuccessful and Mills, standing on the pool of gasoline, sets himself on fire and dies. Modus Operandi Targeting homeless people of both genders and different races and ages, Mills would lure his victims into his car at night with some sort of ruse. He killed his first three victims by stabbing them in the chest or abdomen with a knife, took their bodies to an unspecified location, and burned them with unknown chemicals as a form of sterilization. He then dumped the charred bodies by the local pier prior to the local rush hour, hoping they would be seen by other homeless people. Later, he killed his fourth victim and attempted to kill his fifth victim by drowning them in bleach, shaving their hair and handcuffing them to the metal container they would be drowned in beforehand. The body of his fourth victim, unlike the others, was left near a homeless shelter and not by the pier. His fifth victim also had the remnants of her hair washed with Quell (a medical-grade disinfectant). During his first attempt on Harrison Scott's life, he gave him a superficial cut in the neck with the same knife, tried to manually strangle him to death, and then tried to run him over with his car. During his second attempt to kill Scott, he tied him to a chair, doused him with gasoline, tortured him by slashing him with the knife, and intended to burn him alive. Profile "I was going to matter''!"'' The unsub is a white male who is hunting the homeless, always strikes at night, and is hoping to make a social or political statement through his murders. He has evolved from destroying his victims with fire to wanting them to be easily identified while still depersonalizing them. He is specifically burning his later victims with bleach in an effort to scare the homeless. Shaving the heads of his victims is yet another way of humiliating them. This unsub has a method of transportation and the facility to bleach and burn his victims. He dumps the bodies prior to the morning commute, so he could have a daytime job. It would be hard to detect him, as he blends in with the community, and because of this detail, he is probably a local who feels wronged by the homeless community. He does not draw attention to himself and he is meticulous in his planning. The fact that he is now dumping his victims away from the pier means he is aware of the ongoing investigation and the killings are far from over. His latest murder indicates the unsub has changed his M.O. to perfect his message and is now torturing his victims because he enjoys killing them. As he improves his methodology, he is also improving on what gets him off. The usage of bleach means he wants to cleanse the area of the homeless community in the socioeconomic sense. He lives within two miles of his comfort zone and drives a Ford Mustang registered to himself, since it is doubtful he can maintain a healthy relationship. Burning his first three victims post-mortem, the usage of bleach in his fourth murder, and putting Quell in Sarah Mapes' hair all relate to forms of sterilization. If he is indeed cleansing the streets, he could be treating the homeless population like an infection, seeing them as a virus and himself as the cure. Real-Life Comparisons Mills seems to have been inspired by Ali Reza Khoshruy Kuran Kordiyeh - Both were serial killers who lured their victims into his vehicle, stabbed them to death, and burned their bodies with an accelerant. Mills seems to be based on Israeli serial killer Nicolai Bonner - Both were serial killers who targeted the homeless out of deep hatred, stabbed them, then burned them post-mortem. Both were also affected by Tuberculosis in some way (Mills had it, while Bonner's wife died from it). Known Victims *2012: **November 5: Unnamed homeless man **November 9: Unnamed homeless man **November 11: Lindsay Leeman **November 12: Jeremy **November 13: The alley abduction and attack: ***Harrison Scott ***Sarah Mapes **November 14: Harrison Scott Notes *It should be noted that although he sets fires, Mills is not an arsonist; he is a serial killer who uses fire as a weapon. Vincent Stiles ("Ashes and Dust") and Kaman Scott ("Devil's Night") were described the same way. *Mills seems to be based on at least three unsubs from the show's past: **Season Two ***Ronald Weems ("Sex, Birth, Death") - Both were "house cleaner"-type serial killers who held an intense hatred towards their high-risk victimologies (homeless people in Mills' case, prostitutes in Weems'), would kill their victims by stabbing them, killed their victims at a certain time of day (Mills would kill at night, Weems killed in the morning), and deviated from their original M.O.'s in the case of their last murders. ***Charles Holcombe ("Legacy") - Both were "house cleaner"-type serial killers who hated vagrants, treated his victims as if they were contagious diseases, and the BAU's formal classification as a "House Cleaner". Also, the outfit Mills was wearing when he killed his fourth victim is similar to the one Holcombe would wear when he killed his victims. Both also died in stand-offs while trying to kill a final victim. **Season Four ***Vincent Rowlings ("The Big Wheel") - Both were serial killers with OCD, and as such wrapped their cars with plastic, and killed their victims by stabbing them. Appearances *Season Eight **"The Fallen" Category:Criminal Minds Characters Category:Criminals Category:Season Eight Criminals Category:Serial Killers Category:Abductors Category:Deceased Criminals Category:Poisoners Category:House Cleaners Category:Suicides Category:Narcissists